Fever in the Morning, Fever all Through the Night

Check out my tooth!

My poor, sick, teething baby has been dealing with a fever since Saturday morning.  Up until now, he has never really been sick.  We've had a few false alarms, like when he was spitting up a bit more than usual, and we brought him to the emergency room, or when he had a few spots, his temperature had risen a little bit above normal, and we thought he might have chicken pox.  This time, though, it's the real deal. I'd have to say that Eric is officially sick for the first time in his 10 months.   

Saturday morning was the first day I noticed it.  Actually, the night before Eric hadn’t slept very well, and he seemed hot to me in the middle of the night.  I didn’t want to wake him up more by taking his temperature, though, so I waited to do it until the next morning, and found he had a fever of around 38.2ºC (100.8ºF, rectal).  He seemed to be doing pretty well, and I decided to hold off on giving him any Apiretal, the Spanish version of kids Tylenol (acetaminophen), to try to help his body work on healing itself.  After eating breakfast, though, he started to get fussy, and I decided to give him a low dose of it to help him feel better.

Today, Tuesday, he slept most of the day.

Eric and I spent the day shopping with a friend of mine, and despite not being his usual energetic self, he actually was behaving really well.  By evening, his temperature rose up even higher, and I gave him another dose of his medicine.  That night, I was able to get him to sleep, and although it wasn’t a great night, it wasn’t as bad as the night before either. Sunday morning his fever continued.  It was back to being just over 38ºC, but since he seemed fussy, I decided to give him some more medicine.  There were times during the day that he seemed almost OK, and for awhile during the afternoon he didn’t have any fever.  By nighttime, though, Eric was fussy, and his fever was above 39ºC (102.2ºF).  It was almost impossible to get him to sleep, and he just wanted to be in my arms.  He eventually fell asleep exhausted, but it was sad to see him so upset.

Poor, sick baby!!

On Monday morning, Eric continued with a similar fever, but he seemed so fussy that we decided to make an appointment for him to go see his doctor.  His doctor, though, must be on vacation, and we were put with a different doctor.  I must admit that I’m not upset about that.  We were scheduled to go see the only real pediatric doctor at the public health center.  I’ve almost always heard bad things about her, but I’ve started to realize that I don’t usually agree with the opinions of most people around here, especially when it comes to dentists and healthcare providers.  Being a small town, it’s interesting how different rumors are started about people.  In my experience, most people seem to rely a bit too much on what other people say.  In the case of doctors, it’s not usually based on the capability of the doctor, but is rather often based upon a conflict of personalities or that the doctor wasn’t from here.  So, I was curious to see what this doctor was going to be like.

While sick, Eric hasn't wanted to eat much.  Here he was wearing more food than he had eaten, but at least he's showing us his tooth.

That’s why I wasn’t too surprised when Mauri and I both said that we liked her so much better than our normal doctor.  She checked Eric over, and determined that he has pharyngitis.  It looked like a viral infection to her, so she didn’t prescribe antibiotics.  (I was impressed.  Whenever I’ve gone in for a sore throat here, I’m always automatically prescribed antibiotics without any throat culture ever being done.)  Then, she told us that if he has a mild fever, but seems to be doing OK, to not give him anything.  If the fever rises above 39º, though, or he seems to be fussy, then I could give him a low dose of the Apiretal.  She told us to wait for a few days, and if he’s still sick, to come back to see her, and she would see if he needs any other medications or anything. 

Eric wants to help me write my blog entry

We were both pretty happy with the way the appointment had gone, and I was glad that we had decided to go see a doctor because it helped us know what was wrong with Eric.  (So, no, it wasn’t due to just teething like many people tried to say.  Whether or not teething can cause a fever is a whole different topic; maybe for another day.)  It also helped validate that I had been doing the right thing, because I felt like people were criticizing me for not automatically giving him high doses of acetaminophen (Apiretal) to get rid of the fever.  No matter how much I tried to tell people that a fever is a defense mechanism of our bodies to help kill off infectious organisms and help cure us more quickly, until they heard that a doctor had agreed with me, it had fallen on deaf ears.

Even after seeing a doctor, though, people seemed to be in disbelief: “She didn’t give you anything for it?!?!?!?!”  When they heard whom we had gone to see, they tried to justify their beliefs by saying that she isn’t a very good doctor, despite her being the only real pediatric doctor here, and one who seems to me like she actually knows what she’s doing.  (I’m not convinced about his regular doctor.)  A lot of people here go running to the doctor at the first sign of the sniffles, and expect to be prescribed medicines that will  make it instantly go away, even though sometimes it is better to just wait it out and let the body do its thing.  I think a lot of doctors feel obligated to prescribe something, anything, even when its best just to wait it out, only to live up to the expectations of their patients.  That’s pretty sad.  Maybe that’s why acetaminophen is the number one cause of acute liver failure.  People don’t realize that it is a drug and needs to be used responsibly.

So, we’ve been waiting it out.  Last night he once again had a fever of over 39º, so I gave him a little more Apiretal.  It was brutal trying to get him to sleep, though.  He was biting on the corner of a blanket, so I figured that his teeth might also be bothering him.  We spent over an hour trying to get him to relax, and, exhausted, eventually gave up and let him cry it out.  He finally fell asleep, not long after we left him alone. 

This morning he seemed really tired and fussy when he woke up.  I was looking in his mouth, and thought I saw that his other lower lateral incisor had come in.  After taking a better look, though, I realized that the tooth hadn’t broken through yet, but that it seems to be ready to do so.  The area of gingiva next to his tooth is much higher than it was, and looks blanched from the pressure from the tooth.   Eric still had a bit of a fever, and it seemed like all he wanted to do was sleep in my arms.  So, for a boy who normally can’t sit still, it was almost nice to see him so relaxed in my arms.  He fell asleep, and I was able to move him into his crib for a long nap.  When he woke up, he still seemed tired.  So, I held him for awhile, and he fell asleep in my arms again.  He ended up sleeping for most of the morning and afternoon, and woke up appearing to be feeling a little bit better.  After playing for awhile on the floor, though, he once again seemed exhausted and fussy.

Before his bedtime bath, I took his temperature again, and it was only 37.2ºC (99ºF, rectal) so, for now, it is back to normal.  (Normal rectal temperatures are higher than those taken in the mouth.) Hopefully tonight he’ll get a good night sleep, and will wake up to be his normal, crazy self.  While I will be happy to see him feeling better again, part of me will miss the mellow, cuddly baby who just wants to sleep in mommy’s arms.